Saturday, September 7, 2013

I game on Sundays. Perhaps a ‘used to’ in between the ‘I’
and ‘game’ would me more appropriate.

I have been ‘forbidden’ from playing that game over the next
6 or so months by the director of my college. I was going to type that ‘forbidden’
isn’t the correct word to use but on second thought, I realized it was.

So, here’s what happened.

I play Dota 2 on Sundays along with a few of my friends. Let’s
call them C,B,T, R and A. R quit the game one-two months ago but is still very
much a part of this story.

While A and myself play the game only on Sundays (and study
fairly well) the same cannot be said for C, B and T. They got so hooked to the
game that they began bunking college to play it. For them, it initially was
only Sundays.But it grew into something more. They (C,B and T) began playing 2
games every single day after college. They told their parents that they would
attend the evening study hours at college and went to play instead.

The
fairy-tale didn’t last very long though. One day, they were spotted on the
street by T’s dad who followed them till the gaming centre. From then on, C and
T abated playing but B went on.

B began bunking the afternoon session and some days wouldn’t
come to college at all just to play the game. Though C and T avoided going with
him for a while they couldn’t resist for long. Even they started bunking along
with him.

One day, I went to the top floor of my college building to
ask the director (who happens to my Physics teacher) a doubt. He was busy
talking to some first yearite. So, I waited in the hall-way. That’s when T
walked in along with C’s mother. After eavesdropping on the conversation for a
bit, I learnt that C had not attended the afternoon session but had not returned
home either. It was clearly apparent where he had gone and with whom. Well,
then C’s mom started crying and said that she was so angry at the gaming centre
that she said that she would probably bring ten people and break it’s glass.
All the while, I was in the hallway just listening with a passive face.

Then I
saw her exit. After a few minutes, I was called in. I went in without feeling a
thing. I mean, had no part in this. I
never bunked college to play the game nor did I let it interfere a lot with my
studies unlike them. There was nothing that could be held against me. I noticed
T crying from the side of my eye.

The director asks me ‘Do you play with him(indicating T)?’ I
said ‘Yes.’ And a ‘only on Sundays.’ Just
to indicate/remind him as I’d told him myself that I played videogames on
Sundays a few days back when he asked me what I did on Sundays.

He then asked me ‘Did you know that these fellows bunked
college to play the game?’ to which I nodded my head saying ‘Yes.’

He then said something along the lines of ‘They are you
playmates. Did you never tell them not to play?’ to which I just shrugged and
looked away. When he sensed I wasn’t going to reply he again said ‘They bunk
college to go play the game..” which is when T (who was behind me says) ‘It’s
not his fault sir.’ I thought ‘Uhm. Yes, of course it’s not my fault. He isn’t
saying it is.’ And Sir looked at me to see if I believed what he was saying and
greeted by my impassive face he said ‘I’m not saying it is.’ And ‘All I’m saying is that you need to influence
them to not play.’ To which I just shrug because I didn’t have anything to say.

He then told me that C’s mom had just come and cried because
her son had bunked college to go play the game. Again, an impassive face from
me as I simply didn’t (still don’t though to a lesser degree) feel responsible.

When he (the director) couldn’t elicit any response at all,
he got a little agitated and just basically said everything he already did with
a voice that exhibited a little disbelief as to how I could be so nonchalant
about the matter.

That’s when I said ‘Sometimes we do talk about how much time
we spend playing the game. But, it’s just that..”

That’s when another sir(let’s call him B) walks in and the D
tells him “Even Adarsh plays with them.” To which B replies ‘Oh. He’s also
gone?’ And D tells him ‘No, he isn’t gone. He goes on Sundays only.’ Or something
like that. To which B says “ooh. So, that’s where the respectability comes
from.” And I just blankly looked at him not understanding what he meant. That’s
when he moved across the room and sat down.

D tells him “He doesn’t understand that. He says ‘I tell
them not to play but if they play, what’s my fault.’ ”

And then B starts saying something along the lines of..

When
people are in a position of respect, they cannot do things. Like myself and D,
we can’t do some things because of the position we are in. Like if Manmohan
singh, tomorrow gets into a scandal and stuff I don’t remember. He then said,
as a responsible member of society what you do matters.

His point basically was that I couldn’t say I wasn’t
responsible and throw a blind eye to the happenings. I was responsible for
influencing them. As in, they probably thought ‘Adarsh studies well. He plays
video games. Why can’t we?’ or something like that.

I understood the point he was trying to make though I didn’t
agree with it 100% and nodded my head.

Then D said, ‘the last time you told me you played I thought
it was okay but I’ll have to do something about it now. You’re going to stop
playing now or I’ll stop interacting with you.’

It wasn’t like I had much of an option there so I just said ‘fine.’

Also he said “ I’m going to talk with your mother.” To which
I said “It isn’t necessary. I’ll stop playing.” But he said ‘No. No. I’ll tell
her.’ To which again, I just nodded as there wasn’t much I could do.

And yeah, in between all that, D accepted that I had my
situation under control.

Well, T, B and the other guy quit the room and then I asked
the doubt I was going to and went home. When I told mom about what occurred.

Anyway, as I thought about the events that occurred that day
I realized that I was indeed a good guy and not as bad as D made me think of
myself as.

I mean, I always dissuaded R from playing the game as his
grades used to be affected. Also, when R said he’ll introduce N to the game, I
strongly suggested N to not play the game. Also, when O said he wanted to come
with me, I told him to come at his own risk. I never really told B, T and C to
not play the game as I didn’t think they would listen to me and I thought they
knew what they were getting themselves into.

Anyway, I didn’t mind all that (since as far personal
conscience is considered, it is still clean).

But things took a sharp turn yesterday that left me seething
with anger.

I was asked my D if any ‘exchange’ of money took place. He
basically accused me of ‘gambling’. And when I downright rejected any such
reference with a fairly firm voice, he didn’t seem convinced plus, my mom didn’t
seem very convinced either. Oh boy. That stung so much. I was so pissed off and
still am. The word that’d describe what I was feeling is ‘furious’. It wasn’t
the question that hurt as much as the fact that they didn’t seem convinced when
I furiously rejected the idea.

Also, D told my mom that ‘I had promised him that I wouldn’t
play.’ To which my mom said ‘He didn’t tell me that. He told me what happened
but he didn’t tell me he promised.’ To which I raised my voice by a little so
that it’ll be audible and said ‘Because I didn’t say. I never said ‘I promise’.’
And D just said ‘That was understood. I mean, I told him that if he plays the
game I won’t interact with him. So, that was just like saying that he promised.’
To which I just said ‘Yes, I won’t play.’

Let’s analyze what just happened above.

D believed that it was obvious that if asked to choose
between interacting with him and Dota 2, it was obvious that I would choose interacting
with him.

Which is true but I didn’t like the way he translated that
into me promising him that I wouldn’t play Dota 2.

Well, that is the rational thing to do in this circumstance
but I wasn’t a big fan of him being so sure that I’d do that. I have a general
distaste for people figuring what I’m thinking for me.

For a second there, I might have actually considered Dota 2
as an option just so that I could prove him wrong. In fact, I’m sure that in
some parallel universe, a certain Adarsh actually chose Dota 2 over interacting
with him. I mean, I can do stupid stuff to prove myself correct.

I
probably could’ve chosen Dota 2 and not interacted with him over the entire
next year and still done equally good in Physics though it’d have taken more
effort (provided I can still attend his lectures and that interacting with him
only involves asking questions in and after class). I’ll probably be in a spot
if he reads the previous statement but I believe that to be true. It’d be a
pretty stupid choice and I’d feel bad about the Adarsh in that universe but
some part of me would’ve liked that.

Anyway, there’s no use clinging on to the past. What’s done
is done. Now, I need to focus on what’s next.

The next 6 months are going to be crucial and I intend on
making full use of them (as was the plan always).

With that, I bid adieu.

Until next time,

Adarsh.

Edit : I just hit 100 followers.

PS : I already spent 2 hours on this post. Mom just popped in to ask ' In how much more time will you shut it down?' to which I replied '5 minutes.'... I'm really not a big fan of all this intrusiveness all for no real fault of mine. S.P. She keeps popping into my room to see if I'm playing/watching that game.

Not a lot I can do about it now. The most rational thing to do is give in. Just ~250 days more.

Thursday, September 5, 2013

Reading through some of the old posts here I realized that I've changed in more ways than one.

For better, or for worse.

"What is this life if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare."

Those posts reek of childish enthusiasm that I've long since tasted. I feel like I'm no longer the wide-eyed curious kid I was an year and half ago before entering my college. My eyes have since glazed a bit both figuratively and literally. But then again, in terms of solving multiple choice questions, I'm a lot better than what I was. It has been a trade where it should have been an addition.

I called up some of my school teachers to wish them a happy teacher's day. It felt good, I felt genuinely happy.

There is not a lot to say.

I just wish that this part of my life get's over as quickly as possible and I put in as much effort as I can without trading my individuality for something much more temporary.

Sunday, April 14, 2013

January 2007, my mom took me to a palmist (whose name I presume is "Kaka Bujender") in an exhibition.

I had to dip my hand in some ash-like substance, press it over a piece of paper which would then be sent through a machine and analyzed (6 years later, I'm itching to know what the machine was and how it worked). The result would be a piece of printed paper written in English with a lot of grammatical errors that would make a few predictions about your personality.

My mom found that piece of paper while going through some papers and gave it to me. What follows are some of the predictions on which I can give a definitive comment on. The rest are either too 'hazy' to make out what they truly mean or not enough time has passed.

In no particular order, they are

“When you walk you will walk very fast.”

True

Although I love walking long distances I find it to be a
waste of time. So in order to reduce the
time spent in that, I walk as fast as I can without exerting myself too much. I’ve
even contemplated jogging as an alternative to walking as for every second I
jog, I save about 2 seconds of walking. Also, I hate when people walk in front
of me on a sparsely populated road. Overtaking them by walking faster is the
only way I can restore peace to my mind or pausing for a second to fiddle around with my bag allowing them to
go too far ahead and disappear around some corner are the only two options and
I usually prefer the former.

“You will reach sky and see all stars and moon in your dream
itself.”

60-40 in favor of
True

I’m not sure about what it exactly mean but my dreams are
definitely very vivid. Just thinking about the excitement I feel in those
dreams pumps me up and I just can’t stop smiling. I think I can feel my heart
beating a bit faster too.

“You will be often suffering from cold.”

Damn True

Bad grammar aside, that is definitely true. I carry a
handkerchief on me every single day. I’ve been known to get a cold in
mid-summer (So have many people, I know but still, there’s something odd about
that)

A few weeks ago, while going to college, I saw a woman lying
flat on the main-road with a bloodied face. Dad and mom were in the car with
me. Dad pulled over beside her while mom rushed out and with the help of
another concerned biker carried her to the sidewalk. All this while, I didn’t
blink. While my mother exclaimed “Oh. That is so bad.” and felt sorry about
her, I was sitting there, in the back seat, my head looking out of the window
at her, impassive. Not a single thought of ‘sadness’ or apathy came into my
head. It was just, blank. I always knew I didn’t care a lot about humans but
that incident made it clear. By the way, it turned out that the woman was drunk
and had willingly laid herself in the middle of the road and had not been the
victim of an accident as anybody would’ve thought.

“Your heart is very soft.”

Untrue in most cases (Unless
it means literally)

“A opinion in your mind that whether something happen to you
in future will be torturing you.”

o.O

“You will have love towards children. You will take care of
them. Carefully. But you won’t get any help from them.”

I don’t know what this means. Almost all my interactions
with kids involve one of these situations

- Me smiling like an idiot when a small child
looks at me and makes eye contact. Unless the parent is also looking.-Kids looking at me like I murdered somebody when
I speak with them in English.-The kid talks some gibberish that I can’t
understand so I just smile and look away.

“You
will win what you want!
You
have been born to rule this world.
You
will get success after success

.....

Do I believe that the lines on my hand determine my
personality? Probably not.

I think that I like
to believe that there is something that associates a person’s personality
with the lines on his hand and that somehow, reading these lines would give us
an insight into a person’s personality.

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

I’m finally done with the SAT. Wrote it 2 days ago and I
really hope that I did well enough to avoid writing it again. It’s not that I
loathe reading passages and answering questions based on them but they
sometimes feel too easy and I’d rather be doing something more challenging.

Now, I believe, I have to shift my focus to the impending
boards.

Yesterday, while watching "The Avengers" on Star Movies for the first time, I came across the
following scene.

Tony Stark walks in while the Avengers are talking about
some weapon that Loki’s planning on using. He then starts talking very
technically about it, obviously potraying a deep knowledge of the subject. That’s
when Natasha Romanoff, I believe, asks “When did you become an expert in Thermonuclear
Astrophysics?” Stark replies “Yesterday night.”

For reasons unknown, that ‘quote’ just refuses to get out of
my mind. It blows my mind every time I think about it…

Monday, January 21, 2013

I remember the afternoon of Saturday, Jan 12th
vividly. I was in the classroom chattering with my friends after a boring
morning in which I didn’t learn much. I spotted a silhouette on the extreme
right side of my vision and then hushed up the guy I was talking to by saying “Shh..Sir,
Sir, Sir.” A few seconds later, sure enough, our mathematics sir walked up to
the black board, wished all of us good morning and started the class. I
remember the silent groan that I gave loathing another period before they left
us. 50 minutes later, the sir walked out and the chatter resumed. I was waiting
expectantly for somebody to walk in and tell us that the college had ended and
that we were free to leave. A few minutes later, that was what happened. Half
the class stood up instantly as soon as Sir uttered those words and I think I
spotted an amused smile on his face.

I felt free after a long time. There was no math worksheet pending
after coming home, no test the next day which I hadn’t prepared for, no lesson in chemistry that I was supposed to
read and come. It was an entire week
free from deadlines. It felt good.

A week and 2 days later, here I am. It’s 17 minutes past midnight and in about 8
hours, college will have resumed.

How did the past one week go?

The rest of this post will answer that question.

I spent the first four days of the holidays at my cousin’s
house flying kites. I went there ASAP after college and spent the next four
days flying kites ~8 hours a day and the remaining time watching Telugu movies
with a horrendous amount of advertisement breaks, downloading things I’ve
always wanted on the god-like 1mbps download speed, playing Civilization IV:
Colonization, surfing reddit and very rarely solving math worksheets.

Going to my cousin’s house for Sankranti (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makar_Sankranti)
and flying kites has been a tradition for as long as I can remember. His house
is situated in a neighbourhood near Charminar and a humongous amount of people
fly kites there when compared to my locality’s kite-flying density. I, like always, had a great time flying kites!
It did get monotonous at the end of four days but I loved it. It was my best
Sankranti in terms of the number of kites that I cut individually (~25) It felt
different not being in my house/room. The atmosphere. It made me appreciate the
atmosphere of my room more J.
We marked the end of the Sankranti ’13 by flying this huge 2-pound black
colored kite (that fell on our roof-top) and giving as much ‘dheel’ as we
could. We exhausted all the ‘saadhi’, all my manja plus every last inch of
thread we had left. It went so far that when an aeroplane passed beside it, it
felt like they were at the same height! It persisted for an extremely long
amount of time considering that the kite-flying was normal. People were
challenging one another and fights were all running and yet our kite persisted
as the thread was at the perfect place, going exactly in between a couple of
trees. In the end, some idiotic dumbass guy wantedly flew his kite right
through our thread cutting it. I followed it closely until it disappeared off
the horizon which was also incidentally when the night was almost nigh.

I returned to my room sweet room on the night of 15th
January with a feeling that I’ve had excess fun. My mom asked me “So..You had
fun?” and I replied “Yeah. A lot of fun. More than necessary.” And she was like
“Ooh. Really?”

The next day, I installed Civilization 3 on my laptop and
played for 4 hours 44 minutes and 25 seconds straight. X_X I felt like crap
after that marathon gaming session, mildly disgusted at myself and promised to
make up for it. I can’t remember if I did.

For the next few days until yesterday, I balanced studying
for the SAT, studying French and playing AoE or Civ. It was hard, I’ll give you
that. I did manage to get a lot of SAT practice done though.

Yesterday(Saturday..), I spent the entire morning trying to
play a single full game of AoE or Dota on Gameranger but the stupid internet
kept disconnecting ~15 minutes into the
game. After it happened several times, I got disgusted and quit trying. 2 days
later, the internet is still no better. Anyway, that afternoon, I met up with
my school mates and played 3 sets of volleyball against some random opponents
at a ground in Khairtabad. It was fun playing volleyball after a long time! The
pain I feel while sitting and standing now are temporary scars of the
stretching I did on the field that day and I feel good whenever I feel them :P After
playing there, I visited GRK gaming centre in Himayath Nagar and spent ~3 hours
gaming. Played a game of Fifa ’09 with a friend, checked out some other games
and 2 games of Dota2! While there, I saw – in flesh – a guy who has played over
1471 hours of dota2. Yes, you read that right, 1471 hours! I had to fight hard
to stop my jaw from falling wide open as I saw that piece of information. I
wanted to talk with him desperately and ask him some questions to satiate my
curiosity (I might write them down here some other day) but he had ear-phones
in his ears, was chatting with somebody and seemed to prefer himself so I just
let him be. Did I mention that he has an American accent? A month ago, on my
first trip to GRK, I was redirected to a computer that turned out to be ‘his’.
He asked me “Sir, when will you be leaving? That’s my system.” I was stunned
for a second to hear an American accent from an Indian looking guy but
recovered soon and told him that I’ll leave as soon as I finish the game. If I
ever get a chance, I’d love to talk with him! I came home at ~9:30pm and fought
hard to spend ~2 and a half hours on practicing for the SAT!

Today, (yesterday, I mean) I spent most of my time practicing
for the SAT. Solved a boatload of problems, learned a lot of new words and
my-my nobody told me the SAT would be so.. difficult!

Anyway, I loved the last 8 days and I feel extremely reluctant
to get back to college but hey, it’s got to happen someday. I sincerely hope
that the experiences I had in the past 8 days will help me with balancing my
life and doing well in college (something that isn’t very frequent nowadays. Sigh.)

The SAT is in 6 days and I’m looking forward to getting done
with it. I’ve spent a considerable amount of time preparing for it and while I
don’t feel I’m at the top of my game, I think I’ve had enough. I’ve got college
to focus on and the SAT doesn’t really allow me to do so.

The pre-finals – 1 are starting today. English is the first
one so I’m pretty relaxed but they’ll soon grow uncontrollably out of control.
I just hope I can manage practicing for the SAT and studying for the pre-final.
That’d mean no wastage of time!

AM, over the next 5 days, I am going to work at my highest
potential with maximum efficiency that I can manage. Please call all my
grey-cells and tell them to be ready at the slightest notice. NOW.

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

I haven't written a review of 2012 this year but I'm going to list out all the goals in several spheres of life that I hope to achieve in 2013. Some of them might seem silly to you but hey, they're my goals!

Anyway, in no particular order they are -

Academic Goals

-Ace
the XI board exams by getting a >93%

-A
2300 on the SAT (It’s in 26 days!)

-A
2400 on the SAT Subject tests

-Clear
the cut-off for NSEP and NSEC

-Get
>85% in at least 70% of the tests conducted in the college

-Top
the class by a margin of 30 marks in at least 50% of the grand tests.

-Solve
every problem in Irodov from all the chapters completed until now.

-Solve
90% of all worksheets given in College

Social Goals

-Hang
out with friends at least 8 times in the entire year.

-Stay
in touch with people I’ve known.

-Visit
friends at their places at least 6 times. (5 times remaining)

Health Goals

-Gain
8 kilos by the end of the year

-Run
for at least 13 hours in the entire year.

-Be
able to complete at least 8 push-ups continuously.

Activity Goals

-Post
consistently on my blog. At least 13 ‘big’ posts.

-~10
hours of Dota 2 and an equivalent number of ‘multiplayer’ gaming hours

-Read
~36 books (200 pages minimum)

-Give
3 presentations

-Go
through 3 photoshop tutorials.

Self-Education Goals

-Master
French on Duolingo

-Finish
~3 online courses

-Read
a lot of popular Science books and note stuff down in my blog

-Don’t
stop there.

Miscellaneous Goals

-Achieve
a speed of ~80 wpm with the ‘actual’ way of typing

-Plant
a tree and tend to it for the entire year.

-Catalogue
50 dreams.

-Make
a difference in somebody’s life.

That
is a pretty comprehensive list and I’m sure I will achieve every single one of
them. I feel invincible right now. I hope this feeling stays throughout the
next 365 days.

It’s
the First of January here in India, folks. Happy New Year to you, wherever you’re
from! Hope this year is your best one yet!